How to Save a Life
by Alipeeps
Summary: Shep whump oneshot. Missing scene tag fic to Kodiak Bear's story Save Me. Sheppard plus snakebite equals whump...


_Yet another missing scene tag fic to a story by **Kodiak Bear** - please read her wonderful story **Save Me** at kodiak-bear dot livejournal dot com before reading this as this story probably doesn't make a huge amount of sense without the context of the original fic._

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The call had come out of the blue but Carson had trained his staff well; they were running for the jumper bay with a gurney and triage kit almost before the on-duty gate tech had finished relaying the urgent message. Nevertheless, jumper three had already landed as they pounded into the jumper bay, the rear hatch already descending, and Carson had to wonder at what kind of speed the little craft had come through the gate if Rodney had been flying fast enough to almost beat his own radio transmission back to the city.

He heard Rodney before he saw him, the scientist's voice cracking as he yelled, "Get in here, Carson!" He was stepping onto the hatch before it had touched the floor, the widening opening revealing Rodney crouched on the floor of the rear compartment beside a pale and still Sheppard, the Colonel's pants leg slit to reveal angry bite marks, red and swollen. Carson was already assessing Sheppard's condition as he dropped to his knees beside him, his team rolling the gurney up the ramp behind him.

"He seized on the way back to the jumper and he's been unconscious ever since," Rodney fretted as Carson sought out the flutter of a pulse in Sheppard's neck and settled the stethoscope into his ears. The Colonel was limp, his head lolling to the side, his skin cool and clammy to the touch. McKay remained crouched beside Sheppard, reluctant to move away even when the EMTs tried to move him aside as they clustered around their patient.

"Let them work, Rodney," Carson chided gently, frowning as he listened to Sheppard's breathing. "You've done all you can; it's our turn now."

Carson continued to work on Sheppard as his team moved smoothly into a well-rehearsed routine around him, setting up a pulse-ox monitor and ECG, cutting through the Colonel's t-shirt to attach pads and leads, slipping a blood pressure cuff around his limp arm and an oxygen mask over his face. The doctor didn't miss the wince of pain as Rodney straightened though, nor the way he wobbled as an EMT lead him away from the cluster of activity on the jumper floor. He murmured a quiet instruction to one of nurses and turned his attention to examining the ugly, swollen bites on Sheppard's leg. "Okay. Let's start IV fluids and get him on the gurney." His team were moving to carry out his instructions, their motions practised and sure, even as he spoke. "He's relatively stable for now and I'd like to get him back to the infirmary before administering antivenin. If there's even the slightest sign of anaphylaxis I want to be able to…"

His words were interrupted by the sudden rattling of the gurney as a tremor ran through Sheppard's limp body and then suddenly everything was chaos as Sheppard began to shake and jerk helplessly.

"He's seizing! Ativan, 5mg. Stat!"

Sheppard's body twisted on the gurney, his back arching as his limbs twitched and jumped. Carson's team struggled to hold him down, to keep his airway clear as he choked and hiccupped, while the medication gradually took effect and his convulsions calmed. They started the gurney moving as soon as it became apparent that the attack was subsiding, the medical team pushing the gurney through the city's corridors as fast as they could run. Carson's heart was pounding, adrenalin flooding through him, as he jogged along with them. Sheppard's condition was serious and as he ran Carson felt that he had been suddenly thrown into a desperate race; medical science against deadly venom, with Colonel Sheppard's life as the prize.

Sheppard seized again on the way to the infirmary, the team trying their best to hold down his twitching limbs even as they kept the gurney moving. Carson was forced to ride on the gurney with the Colonel, kneeling astride his flushed and shaking body to administer more drugs to try and suppress the convulsions.

When the tremors finally ceased, Carson leaned back from his patient with a short-lived sigh of relief and looked up to see a haggard, sand-dusted Rodney, his face pale and drawn, his eyes filled with misery, jogging along behind the gurney, the nurse Carson had asked to look after him following him closely as he stumbled in exhaustion.

The doors to the infirmary slid open as they approached and Carson, still crouched atop the gurney, snapped out orders as the chaotic mass of gurney, patient and medics burst into the room. "Straight into ICU, please! Carol, I need adrenaline, Benadryl and Solu-Medrol and every antivenin we have."

"Already set up in the ICU, Dr Beckett."

"Bless you, my dear.." He had a brief moment to smile his gratitude for the nurse's forethought and initiative before the gurney rolled hurriedly into the ICU. The last thing he saw before the doors slid shut, cutting them off from the main infirmary, was Rodney stumbling into the infirmary, looking forlornly after the disappearing gurney as Nurse Anders tried to steer him gently to a nearby bed.

Carson climbed off the gurney almost before it rolled to a halt and was already prepping the first dose of antivenin as his team carefully lifted Sheppard from the gurney and swung him quickly to the waiting bed. The bag of IV fluid was unhooked from the gurney and hung on the stand beside the bed and Carson quickly swabbed the port with a sterile wipe. His team moved efficiently around the bed, each performing their assigned tasks in a smooth, well-coordinated routine, and within moments they were ready, Drs Keller and Reddick standing by within easy reach of the bed, one holding charged defibrillator paddles and the other a syringe of epinephrine. The room was thick with tension as Carson slid the needle into the IV port, as though everyone were holding their breath as the first dose of antivenin was pushed through. Carson felt himself breathe out a little as there was no immediate reaction to the drug and Dr Keller visibly relaxed, smiling tensely at Carson over the raised paddles.

Their luck held as they methodically injected antivenin after antivenin, loading Sheppard's body up with massive doses of drugs designed to bind to and neutralise the poison in his system. The Colonel remained still and unresponsive, his vitals relatively stable, and as he pushed the last dose of antivenin through the IV, Carson began to feel that things were starting to go their way. And then an alarm began to blare as Sheppard's respiratory function began a sudden – and rapid - decline.

The tension in the room broke as everyone snapped into motion, the wailing alarm a shrill counterpoint to Carson's shouted orders as a nurse pulled aside the oxygen mask to place an ambu-bag over Colonel Sheppard's face and began rhythmically pushing air into his lungs.

"No! No epinephrine! It's not the antivenin. If he was going to react, he would have done so before now. It's the venom… probably some kind of neurotoxin component; it's shutting down his respiratory function. We need to intubate… now!!"

A nurse was already setting out an intubation kit as Carson moved to the head of the bed and carefully tilted Sheppard's head back. The lack of laryngeal swelling made intubation relatively uncomplicated and confirmed Carson's diagnosis that this was not anaphylaxis from the antivenin but a symptom of the envenomation, the toxins in the snake venom attacking the nerves controlling respiratory function. He withdrew the stylet in a practised motion and reached for the ambu-bag as the nurse passed it to him. Once connected, he gave the bag a few squeezes, watching the Colonel's chest rise and fall smoothly, before letting the nurse take over as he stepped around the bed to press his stethoscope to Sheppard's stomach and chest, listening carefully as the ambu-bag forced air in and out of Sheppard's lungs.

"Okay." He stood back with a sigh of relief, settling the stethoscope loosely around his neck. "Let's get him on the ventilator, please."

The door through to the infirmary slid open as his team was setting up the vent and raised voices accompanied Rodney's sudden appearance in the ICU. The physicist was still wearing his sand-encrusted uniform and his mulish expression quickly explained the look of frustration on the nurse who appeared behind him, her hand reaching for his arm as she tried to order him back to his bed.

"Rodney…" Carson struggled to keep the annoyance from his voice; he understood Rodney's concern for his friend, his need to know what was happening, but he _really_ did not have time to deal with that right now.

"Get off me!" Carson was a little taken aback at the anger in Rodney's voice as he jerked his arm away from the nurse's touch and stepped – no, staggered – forward, digging a hand into a pocket on his tac vest. The nurse threw Carson an exasperated look as she lunged forward, her hands outstretched in an instinctive attempt to steady Rodney as he swayed on his feet.

"He has a concussion, Dr Beckett," she murmured, not taking her eyes off the wobbly scientist, "but he refuses to get into bed and let us treat him."

"Rodney," Carson sighed. "You need to let Nurse Anders..."

"I forgot." Rodney was still rummaging in different pockets, a frown of concentration on his face as he talked right over Carson's attempt at reasoning, seeming to talk almost to himself as he patted his hands over his tac vest absently. "With all the… with the sand and the running and everything… I forgot all about it. I mean, hello, _head injury_ and there was the sand and Sheppard was… and I had to just leave him on the floor of the jumper cos it's not like the things have an autopilot - actually, I've always wondered why they don't have that. I mean, you'd think with the Ancients' level of technology – but no, I had to fly us to the gate and Sheppard was… and I had to _carry_ him and he was having convulsions – cos, _that_ was fun – and I forgot all about the…

"Rodney?"

"Ah! Found it!" He jammed a hand into a pocket and triumphantly withdrew a specimen jar. "Here!" He weaved a little as he hurried forward, Nurse Anders hovering anxiously behind him as he shoved the jar roughly into Carson's hands. Carson frowned at the small jar and Rodney's eagerness morphed quickly into irritation when Carson didn't respond with immediate comprehension.

"It's venom!" he snapped. "From the bites! When Sheppard got sick I… I used the vacuum pump and…" He swayed suddenly, what little colour there was draining from his cheeks, and both Carson and Nurse Anders leapt to grab hold of him as he wobbled.

"Feelsck," Rodney mumbled thickly.

"Jennifer! Randall!" Drs Keller and Seddon came running at Carson's shout and Jennifer was helping to support Rodney before Carson could even ask, slipping under his arm and transferring his weight onto her slender shoulders as Carson stepped back and handed the precious specimen jar over to Dr Seddon.

"Get this to the lab as quick as you can," he instructed. "I need to know exactly what kind of venom this is, as soon as possible. Have Dr Rao look into it. Jennifer, can you look after Rodney for me? Treatment for concussion and probably dehydration. Let's get him comfortable please."

Between Dr Keller and Nurse Anders, they got an increasingly woozy Rodney turned around and headed back towards the infirmary and Carson walked them to the door, leaving Rodney to their care with a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Thank you, Rodney. You did good."

He heard a mumbled, "Okay" as the doors slid shut.

Carson breathed out a long sigh, letting some of the tension flow out of his body, before turning back to rejoin his team at Sheppard's bedside. The remains of the Colonel's uniform had been cut away and a crisp white sheet draped across his body, leaving his legs bare as Dr Reddick carefully cleaned and dressed the swollen bite marks on his calf. Sheppard's face was partly obscured by the tubing of the ventilator, his chest rising and falling in time with the steady hiss click of the machine that was breathing for him. Grains of sand still clung to his dark, tousled hair.

Carson took a deep breath. The race wasn't over yet. Not by a long way.

"Okay, let's get him started on some antibiotics, broad-spectrum, and let's take some bloods; I want FBC and a full set of LFTs…"

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_Fin..._


End file.
